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Reviewing My 2007 Dell Latitude : Still Going Strong

Do not throw away that old computer just it- it may have useful life left!

The beast surprisingly works rather well even in 2022 – nearly 15 years later! I recently had it serviced- fan is still noisy when it kicks in, but the rest of the system works well. The system originally supported 4 GB of RAM- 1 module of 2 GB is shot. But with a 1.67 Ghz dual core Intel CPU, 2 GB DDR 2 667 Mhz RAM and 120 GB of SATA SSD, the system shows no signs of ageing when I run ZorinOS or Manjaro Linux on it.

In the images below, I installed Xubuntu Jammy (22.04 early version). And the machine runs just fine.

Linux on Dell Latitude D520
Battery for Dell D520 holds charge well Xubuntu Jammy on Dell D520
Battery for Dell D520 holds charge well Xubuntu Jammy on Dell D520
Resource use on Manjaro when system is idling RAM usage when Onlyoffice is running on Manjaro
Resource use on Manjaro when system is idling RAM usage when Onlyoffice is running on Manjaro
Disk space usage for Linux on Dell D520 Installation of Xubuntu Jammy on Dell D520
Disk drives on Dell Latitude D520 Resource use- Xubuntu Jammy on Dell D520
Dashboard of Onlyoffice- Dell D520 Battery Usage on Xubuntu Install
Dashboard of Onlyoffice Battery Usage: Xubuntu Jammy on Dell D520

Below is the benchmark for this system

YABS

Wednesday 15 December 2021 04:52:04 PM IST

Basic System Information:
---------------------------------
Processor  : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU         T5500  @ 1.66GHz
CPU cores  : 2 @ 1325.893 MHz
AES-NI     : ❌ Disabled
VM-x/AMD-V : ❌ Disabled
RAM        : 1.9 GiB
Swap       : 4.2 GiB
Disk       : 105.3 GiB

fio Disk Speed Tests (Mixed R/W 50/50):
---------------------------------
Block Size | 4k            (IOPS) | 64k           (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 6.22 MB/s     (1.5k) | 38.01 MB/s     (594)
Write      | 6.21 MB/s     (1.5k) | 38.29 MB/s     (598)
Total      | 12.44 MB/s    (3.1k) | 76.31 MB/s    (1.1k)
           |                      |                     
Block Size | 512k          (IOPS) | 1m            (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 38.64 MB/s      (75) | 42.57 MB/s      (41)
Write      | 40.30 MB/s      (78) | 44.95 MB/s      (43)
Total      | 78.94 MB/s     (153) | 87.53 MB/s      (84)

Geekbench 5 Benchmark Test:
---------------------------------
Test            | Value                         
                |                               
Single Core     | 226                           
Multi Core      | 334                           
Full Test       | https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/11621138

Wrapping it up

Linux offers a great alternative for keeping ageing systems running. This offers a great way to sustainably use old computers, and I am positive that this machine will keep chugging along for a long time to come.